UFO: The Two Sides

As promised! Here comes the demo.

However please read this short description before jumping in to play:

As aftermentioned, this is a limted demo and works on unfinished version of the game. You will most likely encouter bugs. Please submit found bugs on the forum (and try to guess what is a bug and what is not simply implemented. For example – you press a button and it doesnt do anything – its not a bug, its just not done yet). If you can, try to tell us how to reproduce the bug.

Running the game is quite easy: download, run the extractor.bat, point the original game’s folders and let it extract. Note however that CE version of ufo is preffered for the extraction.

Its advised to play in windowed mode. Although you can change that in config.cfg, if game crashes its easier to safely exit it if you are in windowed mode.

Game minimal requirements: Windows family system, 2 GHz single core processor or better, graphics card capable of displaying graphics using shaders 2.0 or better. Extractor requires installed java.

Link to the game: demo

Future plans: From this point on we will keep on working on the full version of the game. We won’t be upgrading the demo however, so it will stay as it is. Next release will constitute of a full game, and will happen when we finish the basic stuff. Public releases are great because we can have a lot of people helping with the tests (thanks everyone who posted bug reports on the forum, this really helps us in development). So full release will also be a kind of beta, but with the full release we will start making (more or less) regular updates of the code, fixing stuff as they show up. With the demo we’ve decided not to touch it anymore, only fix bugs for the final version that are discovered in the demo and move on to making a full game.

And here’s a quick view of new graphics for xcom base

As promised, we will release a demo before march. As usually when it comes to deadlines, its easier to make it before the final deadline, so from time span between 15th and 28, its 28th. But we have a good reason for that. Demo version actually went to testing on 15th, but we found some stuff to fix. However, due to testing and some brainstorming after the testing we’ve decided to introduce a new feature which will already be present in the demo.

Ufotts will feature geoscape time passing while in tactical combat (probably as one of very few xcom based games)!

Finally, when your troops arrive at dawn you will get the chance to see night become day. Its something i alwayed missed in the original game. So im personally happy about this feature.

We’ve completed all the necessary tasks required for releasing the demo. What is left now is only to polish it up a bit and do some testing. Demo will be released this month. Between 15th of february and 28th.

Demo will be limited to playing one tactical combat against AI. No multiplayer. Geoscape will be limited to ordering new equipment and soldiers. Also, game will be limited to 7 days of play.

Why the limitations? – We’re not ready with the overall balance of the game which includes economy and techonology research times. Not all technologies are yet implemented, plus there is a technical requirement to limit the game’s time imposed by the length of the alien missions. Non the less, its pretty enough to test the game.

You will however need the original game to extract all the data from. We’re not quite done with remaking all the graphics.

After a short break, we’re back with more goodies. Due to some real life issues i had to take care off there was little coding going on. But now we’re coming into a new age of productivity . Developer’s version of the game is constantly enchanced, and thanks to our new graphics artists rom, we’re making the game prettier than ever before. SCREENS !

And the same for comparison using old graphics:

With michal’s help on developer tools and extractor, Nirven’s new gui and my code upgrades we’re getting closer to a working game. During the waiting time we’ve found some new bugs, which are being addressed right now. When we deal with them, we’ll resume work on the demo. Now its for real

As we’ve expected, remaking the graphics takes quite a lot of work and time. It seems we wont be able to provide the game with remade graphics anytime soon. We have therefore made adjustments to our game releasing plans.

Originally, we wanted to release a limited demo, and hopefuly, using it to promote the project, gather more people willing to help us redo graphics, sound and music.

Now, thanks to help from Michal, we’re making an automated extractor program, which will use the first game’s data files and place them in proper format and place in the remake. The bad news is that you will need to have the first game in order to play the remake. The good news is it will be sooner.

Also, I wanned to answer a common question that i see is being asked a lot:

Why making Ufo: TTS if the original game is still playable (and even still sold)? If its a fateful remake what sense is to play Ufo: TTS over Ufo 1?

Answer:

It is a close remake, not fateful. It however uses fateful graphics and as fateful as we could get menu layouts.
Some of the below features can be applied to ufo 1 via mods, however the most important ones are unique.

• Ufo: TTS features a number of user interface improvements (keyboard shortcuts, more info on screen…).
• Higher screen resolution with higher unit’s resolution, and wide screen support in tactical battle, allowing you to see more.
• Multiplayer
• Playable as both sides (single and multiplayer)
• Ufo player is not random anymore. In the original game the only profit you got from shooting down alien battleship was the profit you gain yourself. You could shoot down 1000s of them and aliens would not feel it. In Ufo: TTS Aliens have their own economic system. This gives more satisfaction and more meaning to shooting down alien crafts as it harms their economy.
• Tweaks to tactical combat which can further be divided into:
  • Different handling of weapon’s aim and damage, hopefully adding more decision making to the game rather than ’shot the first alien you see with whatever you have in your hand’.
  • With reworked aim, introduction of sniper rifle (the only weapon added to the game, as i’m opposed to adding much, at least at this point in production), which actually works like a sniper rifle and its aim is calculated in a different way than normal weapon’s.
  • With changed aim and damage system, weapons are more diverse, its not only the best damage / accuracy vs time units, but heavy weapons and rifles work in a different way. Generally, weapons have been slightly rebalanced, to make the arming phase more interesting, not only pack your soldiers with heavy plasmas (occasionally laser rifles) and some blasters.
  • Reintroduction of ‘new’ special abilities. Why ‘reintroduction’? Because those abilities were in the original game, but only mentioned in the Ufopedia. Like, snakemen laying eggs, celatid’s abbility to detect brain waves (acting like a radar). Everything was mentioned in the first game, but wasn’t present on the battlefield, which was a let down for everyone who liked to read those autopsy and live specimen examinations.
  • Addition of a new soldier’s stat – perception. Again, i’m opposed to adding much at this stage, as it can break the fun original game had. But perception simply blended extremely well into the game, allowing soldiers to act better as scouts.
  • Some other, minor improvements, like right clicking to open the door (a’la terror from the deep), and a couple of new inventions that are still being tested.
• Reworked air combat. Original game’s air combat was very flawed in design. If you had range advantage over the alien ship, you could shot it down without any retaliation fire.
• Reworked X-com plane’s stats so that useless firestorm and lightning can find their place in the game again. (This is actually a bigger change than simply buffing up their stats )
• Some of the technologies have been reworked in various ways.

We’ve promised you a demo, and we will deliver one soon. It’s hard to tell when exactly, but we’re doing what we can. Instead of a demo, I can ofer you a new screenshot and some info for now.

(click to enlarge)

Our new remade desert tiles. Other images are still being worked on.

What will the demo have?

- Taste of both geo and tactical parts of the game. You’ll see an ufo waiting for you and you can check out the base menus and functionality.

- In tactical combat you will face our beta version of AI, you’ll be able to use all the starting weapons and engage in regular combat.

Also, please keep in mind – there is a lot of work on this, mostly in terms of graphics and sound. If you can help us remake either of those, please join our irc channel #ufotts on quakenet.org.

I’m happy to say that we’re getting things done here!

This will be short post on how the project goes. You can follow our artist’s work on the forum. They’re working on remaking tactical map’s tiles and units. Trying various setups to get the best effects. Internal beta testers are trying the new 0.82 version which has many bugfixes. We’re trying to balance out the multiplayer part. I’ll try to do something on the AI part this weekend. We also managed to do a couple of interface additions to make this game more comfortable when playing, so ufo player can see his ships in base in different colors depending on their status and so on .

Welcome!

Let us quickly introduce the project and its history.

We, fans of the first game in the series, are trying to show our own vision of a remake. We’re hoping to create ufo, close to the original, with an addition of playable ufo side, and couple of other improvements. Both in single and multiplayer. The project itself started as a one-man endeavour in march 2009. It had its ups and downs, and was eventually closed down due to low interest it recived. However, with a forming of new development team that joined the original maker, the project recived its second chance. The good news is that the game is already working, and we’re about to lauch a demo that anyone can play with ease!

There is lot of work to be done. If you can help us, join our #ufotts irc channel at quakenet. We’re mostly looking for graphics artists or sound (special effects mostly) specialists.

Here’s some goodies. New graphics for xcom and ufo bases in high resolution, thanks to Nirven. (click to enlarge)

Hello. Our team currently is busy with new graphics for this game.

Here are examples of models (created by lukas) which will be used in ufopaedia:

Stingray

Avalanche

Cannon

Laser cannon

Plasma Beam

Fusion Ball Launcher